{"id":11291,"date":"2013-05-28T19:05:53","date_gmt":"2013-05-28T09:05:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=11291"},"modified":"2014-04-26T16:43:07","modified_gmt":"2014-04-26T06:43:07","slug":"eleven-madison-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=11291","title":{"rendered":"Eleven Madison Park"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"tagusa\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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We visited three 3-star Michelin restaurants in New York.\u00a0 Le Bernardin<\/a> was a clinical business-lunch affair where we were surrounded by suits in a no-nonsense atmosphere.\u00a0 Per Se<\/a> had wonderful service and offered French-American cuisine prepared with impeccable finesse.\u00a0 We had plenty of expectations with both restaurants but took a bit of a chance on the third big dining experience – Eleven Madison Park.\u00a0 We hadn’t heard much about the place or knew what to expect.\u00a0 We just heard it was worth checking out<\/em>.<\/p>\n

So what was it like?<\/p>\n

It was the Willy Wonka of Michelin rated restaurants.\u00a0 The Mad Scientist, the Heston Blumenthal, the Andy Warhol.\u00a0 Chef Daniel Humm and his staff serve up a sixteen course meal that is playful, inventive, loaded with props and keeps you guessing at every turn.\u00a0 It was the most fun<\/em> I’ve had at a degustation by a country mile.<\/p>\n

Let me take you through it.<\/p>\n

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The tasting menu is book ended with this parcel wrapped in string.\u00a0 Inside are two black and white biscuits.\u00a0 In the opening course, they taste savoury.\u00a0 In the final course, you get an identical serve only this time they taste sweet.\u00a0 This simple trick sets the tone for the meals to come.\u00a0 You never quite know what to expect and how things will taste.<\/p>\n

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How the hell does someone cut an egg shell with such precision?\u00a0 It is a mystery.<\/p>\n

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A big ol’ tub of caviar because why not.<\/p>\n

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There’s nothing cooler than being served a course under a bell jar that is completely consumed in smoke.<\/p>\n

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\"madison011\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This course emulates a beef tartare except instead of mince they grind a carrot.\u00a0 Then you dine on the carrot tartare with chopsticks and dip it in one of nine tasting platters.<\/p>\n

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Why not have a quick picnic during your meal?\u00a0 The basket comes with Eleven Madison Park’s own brand of beer, some nice cheeses and loaves of bread shaped to look like crustaceans.<\/p>\n

\"madison004\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"madison003\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This course had a hidden compartment at the bottom of the plate which unclasped to reveal the chocolate treat.\u00a0 The waiter reveals this treat by first performing a card trick where you pick a card with one of four symbols on it and somehow the waiter matches the card you choose with the symbol on your chocolate.\u00a0 I still can’t work out how he did it.<\/p>\n

\"madison002\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"madison026\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"madison020\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"madison024\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Our dining experience at Eleven Madison Park was one of the most surprising and entertaining revelations in New York.\u00a0 I cannot recommend this experience enough to anyone who’s feeling adventurous about their food.\u00a0 It was by far the cheapest of the three big restaurants we visited and yet the service was still excellent and I like that they sourced all their food locally.<\/p>\n

Eleven Madison Park was recognized this year as The Best Restaurant In America in the 2013 San Pellegrino Top 50 Restaurants in the World.\u00a0 It also came in as 4th Best Overall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We visited three 3-star Michelin restaurants in New York.\u00a0 Le Bernardin was a clinical business-lunch affair where we were surrounded by suits in a no-nonsense atmosphere.\u00a0 Per Se had wonderful service and offered French-American cuisine prepared with impeccable finesse.\u00a0 We had plenty of expectations with both restaurants but took a bit of a chance on …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":11297,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,415,1804,1806],"tags":[1475,1646,626,1606],"class_list":["post-11291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-food-and-drink","category-travel-blog","category-united-states","tag-blogs-from-america","tag-eleven-madison-park","tag-michelin","tag-new-york"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11291"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14011,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11291\/revisions\/14011"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}